Chapter 31
AURORA
Thalric gathers me up instantly, the way he always does, and I melt into his embrace as his wings fold around my form.
“You’re here.” I swallow back a sob. “You found me.”
“I will always find you, Auri.” His deep voice vibrates through his chest. One clawed hand gently cradles the back of my head, as if I’m made of spun glass, while the other skims my spine in slow, soothing strokes. “I have you, my savryl.”
His words break something inside me, and though I try to hold them back, more tears slide down my cheeks as a maelstrom of emotions swirl deep within.
A low purr builds in his chest as he holds me close.
“I can’t do this,” I barely manage. “I don’t want to be the princess. I don’t care about prophecies or curses or any of it. I press my face to his chest. “I only want you.”
His breath leaves him in a rough exhale. “Auri.”
“Please, Thalric.”
I tip my head back. My gaze travels over his face, studying the sharp lines of his Gargoyle features. Some might think him monstrous, but not me. I’ve loved him for as long as I can remember.
“Say we’ll run,” I plead. “Say we’ll go back to Oakvale and hide away in our cave, where life is simple and our choices are our own.”
“I wish we could.” Agony threads through his voice as he nuzzles my temple. “But we can’t.”
“You mean you won’t,” I say bitterly.
“Aurora.” Tenderly, he brushes a tear from my cheek with his thumb. “If anything happened to you because of me… if that curse found you when I should have kept you safe, it would end me. Do you understand?”
He clenches his jaw. “I would die, Auri. Do not ask me to risk your life, because I can’t. I won’t.”
The ache in my chest turns into helpless anger.
“It isn’t fair,” I whisper. “It isn’t fair that fate gets to decide what my heart is allowed to have.
” I cup his cheek. “I don’t care if I’m the princess.
I don’t care if fate says I belong to someone else.
You’re the one my soul longs for… the one it has chosen. ”
His eyes close, and for a moment I think he’ll cave…
that he’ll crush his mouth to mine and carry me out the window and we’ll fly until the world drops away and there’s only us, only this.
But when his lashes lift, I see the iron wall of his will.
Duty and devotion etched in his features like stone.
“I choose you, Auri,” he says, voice ragged. “With every breath and beat of my heart. And because I do, I will not be the reason you come to harm. Even if it breaks me.”
The fire of my anger turns to ash at his words. He gathers me closer, tucking my head beneath his chin as he emits another low rumbling purr.
“Sometimes I think about that night at the ruins,” I breathe, the memory of our first kiss seared into my soul. “Or that night of the fall festival.” A faint smile crests my lips. “When I convinced you to dance and to try a candied apple.”
He huffs out a faint laugh. “I enjoyed the dance but not the apple,” he says, sadness lacing his tone.
“But you liked the lemon cake the next day, remember?” A faint grin crests my lips as I blink back tears. “I finally found a dessert we can share.”
“I remember.” His voice is thick with emotion. “I remember, Auri.”
My smile falters as reality crashes back in, and I press my face harder to his chest. “I don’t want this palace or a crown or a stranger for a husband. I want you.”
“I know, but you must listen to me,” he murmurs, nuzzling my temple. “Even if fate will not allow us to be together, we will not be parted.”
Gently, he drops his forehead to mine. “I will always be nearby. I will guard your days and watch your nights and keep you safe and protected. Do you hear me?”
Despair floods my veins. “I don’t want to lose you.”
“You could never lose me, Auri.” He curls his wings tighter around me. “I am yours. In every way I am allowed to be. And in the ways I am not, I am yours still. Always.”
Sadness tightens my chest. “Will you stay with me?” I whisper. “Just tonight. No running. No kissing. No… anything. Just—” I swallow against the lump in my throat. “Stay.”
Carefully, he shifts us so that we’re lying on our sides. The mattress dips under his weight as his wings settle around me, sealing the world away.
I burrow closer as he holds me like something precious, something breakable… as if I’m his.
“Sleep,” he purrs. “I’ll be here when you wake.”
“Promise?”
“I swear it.”
His tail slides across the sheets and curls snugly around my ankle.
My eyes drift shut. The last thing I feel is the steady rise and fall of his chest beneath my cheek, and the faintest brush of his lips against my hair as I fall away into sleep.